The Bewilderness

Danger, difficulty and wonder: a commonplace future

Glenn Reynolds, of Instapundit fame, reviewed Michio Kaku's new book, "Physics of the Future", for the Wall Street Journal. Yet, is it wise to allow an optimistic review of an optimistic book? For Reynolds, with some personal touches, treats the book as a survey of what he believes possible. I could not find any phrase where Reynolds disagrees with the author.

This is not meant as a criticism of Reynold's review. His approach is to promote his enthusiasm and acceptance of Kaku's visions of the future, a goal that I share. But there are other views: opposed to such technological advances, or more attentive to the risks. Reynolds alludes to these with his quote from Vernor Vinge:

I am inclined to agree with Mr. Kaku's largely optimistic view of the future. But I am also reminded of science-fiction writer Vernor Vinge's warning about technology empowering individuals to the point that it could put "world-killer weapons in the hands of anyone having a bad hair day."

The message of what technology could potentially do for you is a strong advertisement for optimism about the future. Yet, at the same time, the future is in danger of becoming commonplace.

We all share that sense of wonder derived from science and science fiction, where we are imbued with the shock of the new. But as change as picked up: the next Ipad, the next smartphone, the newest drug becomes expected. I can not be sure, from Reynold's review, that Kaku's latest vision carries the wonders, the dangers and the difficulties of the future. Best to read it then!

Things get faster, faster

This is the year that the concept of the Singularity began to storm the mainstream. As the concept has been popularised by Ray Kurzweil through his books and documentary, it has acquired legs within the mainstream media. The reasons for this upsurge in interest are obscure, though some of the credit doubtless goes to those who have continued to promote the debate.

It is the concept of the Singularity that has proved more popular than transhumanism. Talk about a geek movement and people unfairly yawn; the arguments of a time when we could become better than we are (or toast!) have a Manichaean attraction.

Furthermore, popular culture has been preparing the way for this possibility of machine outstripping man: think "The Forbin Project", "The Day The Earth Stood Still" and "Terminator". Whatever the underlying sense of wonder for singularitarians, engendered by the eye-widening world where things get faster, faster; we have a generation that can imagine computers better than us. They may not know how we get there, but they are familiar with a destination.

The ideas are now spreading into nooks and crannies previously unfamiliar to us: including the Philippines.

The rate of change is certainly contributing to the instability that we see about us: political economies can now rise and fall within a matter of decades. Look at Brown's client economy in the UK and the current pain in its mild dismantling. God help those politicians when they find that entire model begins to collapse.

Intervene in haste, repent at leisure

The outcome for protests in each Arab country depends upon the level of frustration, the level of force used to quell the disturbances and the institutional complexity of each society. Where a civil society has developed, the transition has tended to be more peaceful: the rumblings of a secular, frustrated class has eased the succession within or between elites. The outcome may be flawed, chaotic and uncertain; but the revolutions have favoure greater representation within a recognisably liberal framework. They share some similarities to the flawed and failed colour revolutions of ex Soviet states. Only Bahrain fails to fit this model due to the intervention of Saudi Arabia; an intervention that may have fatal consequences.

The other two countries where protests have coalesced into a threat against the existing regime are Yemen and Libya. These are fractious countries where the existing dictator has maintained their rule through tribal alliances and nepotism. The narrow base of this ruling network is exposed with the rise of the losers. Lacking the constraints of limited freedom or independent power bases, these regimes have degenerated towards stand-off and civil war, abetted by theviolence unleashed by the long-standing rulers.

As such, the intervention in a civil war without an exit strategy and supporting a ragbag council of disaffected tribes is not a planned benefit for the West. We may have prevented the quick outcome in a civil war and endorsed a stagnant unstable partition for a few months. Is the consequence just revisiting Saddam Hussein's Iraq on the North African coast, maintaining no-fly zones for the next ten years as chaos festers within this vacuum. Our best outcome is the removal of Gaddafy and his replacement with a weak balancing act or an allied victor after the end of a civil war.

Egypt's 'Mighty Duo' co-opt the revolution

Egypt has approved constitutional changes in a reasonably free and fair election. The referendum sets a timetable for legislative elections and agreed term limits for the presidential post. The referendum was passed through strong support from the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) and the Muslim Brotherhood. Opposition to the vote was mainly concentrated in Cairo and Alexandria whereas the provinces voted positively for the proposals.

Opposition is derived from the liberal protesters, who have failed to coalesce into campaigning parties. They paint a picture of the traditional duopoly, the NDP and the Muslim Brotherhood, co-operating to preserve power and complain that they have been given insufficient time to create political institutions top channel their support. Perhaps this is the case; perhaps ruling military council wishes to provide evidence of change and prevent further upheaval. They will look at the revolts in Tunisia with some apprehension.

The concern is that the forthcoming elections will write the new constitution. If The Muslim Brotherhood gets the upper hand, then Islamism may gain the upper hand. However, the complexity of wooing a strong secular minority, the Christians and the public sector NDP may place severe constraints on what the Muslim Brotherhood could achieve in a constritutional convention.

Into the bow wave

It is rather dull waiting for all of this debt to collapse. Whether we call it 'extend and pretend', 'delaying the inevitable', delay the day' and any other such labels that magical financing brings up, government has subprimed the pump for a few years now, and nowhere more than China or the United States. Opposites attracting for a united ruin.

We have had some calm for a while now, since markets don't appear to be able to digest more than one crisis at a time if generated from within. Events are moving beyond the markets: with upheavals in the Middle East placing, perhaps, too much weight on the entitlements of the West for their survival in their present form.

An oil shock could produce such a whirlwind that the bow wave of a reserve currency dying leaves Irish or Greek default as a careless whisper, blown away before it registers beyond the local setting. One can perceive dimly and wide eyed the worst case scenario of this potential tsunami: the United States wrecked and insular; Europe broken: its currency union divided, its markets balkanised and a North African littoral condemned to a generation of irrational and imperialist fundamentalisms; Japan condemned to a rapid decline in living standards under the twin decay of debt slavery and depopulation; a China, recentralising and marshalling a cheated bourgeoisie through post-communist expansionism, fighting chosen wars with its proxies.

We have the potential to revisit the 1930s under our policy mistakes and, then as now, not all representative institutions survived.

The Space industrial complex

Within the next three years, we will step beyond a government monopoly in spaceflight towards a public/private partnership: NASA financing and commercial contracts with lean operators. Not an ideal outcome but a stepping stone, one hopes, to the privatisation of the space industry. An article from space.com gave some ideas on the development of the semi-national industry (entrepreneurial investments/government contracts).

Phase I: Beyond Powerpoint presentations...

Phase II: Successful launch trials (in 2011), with development and demonstration

Phase III: Profitable contracts from government and private sector customers

Phase IV: Sustainable industry with little or no reliance on government expenditure

I am sceptical about Phase IV: since the seeds of a nascent space-industrial complex are gradually being sown due to the limitations of deficit financing.

The Space industrial complex

Within the next three years, we will step beyond a government monopoly in spaceflight towards a public/private partnership: NASA financing and commercial contracts with lean operators. Not an ideal outcome but a stepping stone, one hopes, to the privatisation of the space industry. An article from space.com gave some ideas on the development of the semi-national industry (entrepreneurial investments/government contracts).

Phase I: Beyond Powerpoint presentations...

Phase II: Successful launch trials (in 2011), with development and demonstration

Phase III: Profitable contracts from government and private sector customers

Phase IV: Sustainable industry with little or no reliance on government expenditure

I am sceptical about Phase IV: since the seeds of a nascent space-industrial complex are gradually being sown due to the limitations of deficit financing.

Soon we may all be timelords (so long as you always pass Go)

This was picked up from the John Mauldin newsletter: a low-key announcement by Biotime for the commercialisation of regenerative technologies.

On March 16, 2010 BioTime and its collaborators announced the publication of a scientific paper titled "Spontaneous Reversal of Developmental Aging in Normal Human Cells Following Transcriptional Reprogramming." The article, which was released online in the peer-reviewed journal Regenerative Medicine demonstrated that the aging of human cells can be reversed with potentially significant implications for the development of new classes of iPS cell-based therapies targeting age-related degenerative disease. The on-line version of the article can be found at http://www.futuremedicine.com/doi/abs/10.2217/rme.10.21.

Is this how Dr Who regenerates? Not so much a Time Lord as a Stem Cell Queen. This is a first step on our route to Gallifrey.

A region wracked by unrealised dreams

There seem no end to the upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa: protests continue in Oman, Yemen, Tunisia, Bahrain and Iran. Egypt seems a calm oasis for the moment.

The first revolution begins its slow and fractious process. The discontent with the existing elite has resulted in further resignations from the interim government and the legalisation of the Islamist movement, Ennahda. This development recalls the warning from many analysts: the most organised movements are able ot capitalise on the chaos.

Can the protestors avoid the danger of Islamism: one regime, one vote, then everlasting government, freedom forever revoked. The reports that protests have avoided references to existing issues: Palestine, Islam and Israel are far from the truth. They have voiced their demands after victory. Only the desperate rulers invoke the traditional scapegoats to save their hides. Their own lies no longer work. You can't portray Israel as the wolf when you huffed and puffed on your own people.

The original inchoate coalitions have fractured as disciplined Islamist movements give voice to their traditional goals in rallies. Can the western media convey the Islamic symbols within which protest and death is presented and celebrated? Is there not a greater willingness to martyr for a cause than we would see in equivalent demonstrations elsewhere; a more casual brutality in beating and shooting demonstrators? For the existing regimes, life is cheap and devalued.

When life is that devalued, civil wars will follow. What do the Libyans have to lose? Their lives, their homes, their honour. Once war starts, barbarity swiftly follows...